Russell says Mercedes performance just 'isn't there'

George Russell says Mercedes enjoyed a productive three days of testing in Bahrain, but the Briton nevertheless admitted that the Brackley squad was "one step behind its rivals"

Russell concluded his final day of running with the fourth fastest lap, but over a second adrift from Red Bull pace setter Max Verstappen, while Hamilton who logged a healthy 78 laps in the morning was next to last in the final day's pecking order.

Many are prudent not to jump to negative conclusions regarding the mighty Mercedes team which has fooled its opponents before in pre-season testing.

But by all accounts, the team's W13 looked like a difficult proposition on track in Bahrain, with the car appearing not to have ironed out its porpoising and understeering issues.

Despite the struggles, Russell preferred to take a glass half full approach to Mercedes' week at Sakhir.

"It's been pretty productive, but very intriguing at the same time," said Russell.

"Obviously, it's pretty clear some of the issues that a lot of teams face with the bouncing, and [we're] just trying to get on top of that really.

"I think we got through everything, had not so many reliability issues, and just got through the programme, so from that perspective, it was positive."

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While the W13 Silver Arrow's porpoising effect made for an uncomfortable ride, Russell said he could live with the discomfort "if the performance is there". But it wasn't according to the Mercedes charger.

"I think it [the porpoising] just depends on how hard you're pushing the car, really," he said.

"We're trying to get every last bit of performance out of it and just trying to test those limits. But it's bouncing around a lot!

"From within, it's not the comfiest at all, honestly. But I don't really care about comfort if the performance is there.

"At the moment, the performance isn't there – we do seem to be a step behind our rivals.

"We have a lot of work to do between now and [the first race] next week to understand [the issues] because, in every condition, the Red Bull and the Ferrari seem a step ahead of us."

Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said that despite the drivers' rocky ride onboard W13, that progress had been made.

"Both sessions have been quite instructive," he said.

"We've made a bit of progress with the bouncing which in turn has made the car less of a handful on the limit and it also feels like we've made a step in the right direction with setup today.

"There's still a lot of pace to come if we can make further gains on the bouncing and get the car more settled.

"We've got a lot of good data so hopefully we can gain a bit more understanding of the issues in the next few days."

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